Sean Bean could return as Ned Stark in Game of Thrones reunion special

Share This Post

Although it’s been quite a while since we’ve seen Sean Bean play Ned Stark on Game of Thrones – what with him literally losing his head in the first season – it looks as though he may return for a reunion special, courtesy of Conan O’Brien.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter plugging his latest projects, Medici: Lorenzo the Magnificent and Curfew, Bean admitted that “about four weeks ago,” Conan O’Brien “decided to get all the characters together for a bit for this big show in Belfast and he kind of hosted the evening.”

More Sean Bean

“It was the last episode, so we all got together,” Bean admitted. That’s all we know about this Game of Thrones reunion special that O’Brien hosted. Reps from HBO and Team Coco have both declined to comment. We’re guessing it will air sometime just before, during or after the final season of the series airs on HBO next year.

Bean played Ned Stark in the first season of Game of Thrones in 2011, but his character was killed off in Season One’s penultimate episode.

When asked why Ned Stark is still so much in the public discourse despite being only in one season, Bean said he thought it was because, since “there are very few good people in Game of Thrones,” Ned “was a principled man, he was fair. He was a family man and he was also a warrior. He was well-respected by his family and the people he looked over. He applied that to his life in general, to his family, to everything he did. He came to realize being fair and being moral … you’re not going to survive by doing that.”

Despite that, “he didn’t change. … He stuck to his guns.” Which is of course what killed Stark. “He was too honest, really,” bean lamented about his GoT character.

And as for whether we can expect to see Bean in any previously-announced GoT prequels, Bean said it seemed unlikely. “I don’t know how we can be [involved],” he said. “I don’t know how anyone can be, since they're going backwards, I’d be younger. Now, we all look a little bit older.”